Some of this year’s best-selling 3DS titles like Tomodachi Collection and Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon are yet to top this figure. Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3.4 million) and Mario Kart 7 (2.1 million) are the only two 3DS games currently in the charts to have topped it, and both have had over a year to do so.

This seems like a good time to examine the Minster Hunter sales phenomenon, as harvested from various Media Create charts and Famitsu’s figures, and compiled by NeoGAF members – for starters, the 3DS only sold about 371,000 units at launch, and a further 214,000 after its price cut. At its peak holiday sales week, it shifted 510,000 units – so Monster Hunter 4 is about three-fifths of a holiday’s worth of sales.

Monster Hunter 3, which released in various forms on 3DS, PSP, PS3, Wii and Wii U, was a massive seller every time it turned up. For example, Monster Hunter Freedom 3 sold over 1.9 million copies in its first five days on sale, generating 325,000 PSP sales that week.